Every year, my husband signs up for the staff Christmas cookie exchange at his school. And every year, I bake him three dozen cookies to bring to school to exchange.
This year, I compromised with him. I would bake the cookies if he would call the plumber and have the garage drain fixed. "Deal," he said. (I think I got the better end of that bargain.)
"What to make, what to make," I thought to myself. Well, I have been pretty obsessed with almonds lately. I make my own almond milk, eat a ton of almonds, and almost exclusively bake with almond flour or almond meal. When I saw a beautiful photo of amaretti cookies online, I was shocked to discover that the recipe only called for almond flour. I thought for sure they were a plumper version of a sugar cookie. (And personally, I'm not a fan of sugar cookies. I mean...why make sugar cookies when you can add chocolate chips to them and make chocolate chip cookies? I'm very biased here. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite.)
To get into the holiday spirit, I blasted the Christmas music and got down to baking amaretti cookies. For the cookie dough:
- 3 cups of almond flour
- 2/3 cup of granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 2 large egg whites
- 1 teaspoon of almond extract
I combined the almond flour, sugar, and salt. In a separate cup, I separated out two large egg whites and mixed them on high with my immersion blender to get a light-as-a-cloud, meringue-like texture. (I saved the egg yolks for a quiche I made later.)
Then, I folded the egg whites into the dry mixture. It'll slowly become a nice dough that you can gently form into a ball.
I refrigerated the dough for an hour. Or, you can freeze it for half the time.
After the dough became chilled, I preheated the oven to 325 degrees and covered a baking sheet with parchment paper. While the oven warmed, I scooped the dough into 1 inch balls, using a measuring spoon to help me be exact. I tossed the balls in powdered sugar and placed them on the parchment paper, spacing them about an inch and a half apart. I ended up getting about 40 little cookies.
I baked the cookies for about 20 minutes until they cracked slightly on top and were light brown underneath.
I was careful not to overbake because I love a chewy cookie. Oh but right, these cookies aren't for me.
